The Magic Of Lipstick

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<p style="text-align: left;" class="CaslonbodycopyBodyCxSpMiddle"> In 1992, aged 18, I started my first lipstick line, Poppy (having a name that caused me considerable angst in the playground finally paid off). I did this because I couldn't find any lipsticks I liked. Those deep, Biba-esque shades had long disappeared, leaving a sea of fuchsia pinks, corals and shimmer. To make matters worse, they had a horrible slimy finish that slid off your lips as swiftly as a one-night stand's exit the morning after. Where were the matt lipsticks in rich wines, true reds and chocolate browns? The shades immortalised by women such as Lauren Bacall and Ingrid Bergman during the golden age of Hollywood? Strong, sexual, intelligent, elegant shades… I couldn't find the lipsticks that epitomised the type of woman I was or aspired to be. My choices seemed either timid (watery coral shades) or dragon lady (magenta purple). There was nothing in between.

<p style="text-align: left;" class="CaslonbodycopyBodyCxSpMiddle"> My desire to develop the perfect lipstick went beyond the aesthetic; I've always believed that to consider lipstick merely cosmetic is unjust. Cosmetics enhance, conceal or minimise. Lipstick transforms. Lipstick trends - their absence, their presence - they're as much to do with sociology as they are to do with fashion. Lipstick moves us from one state to another. During the time of the Roman Empire, wearing lipstick was a sign of social ranking. In the Thirties and Forties, red lipstick was a symbol of strength and resilience through the hardship of depression and war. Even during rationing, Churchill kept lipstick in production because he believed it had a positive effect on morale. With the Fifties came happier times - perfect lawns and perfect lips, a suburban-utopia mirage where women would not let their husbands see them without lipstick. The Sixties ushered in a backlash (pops of white, silver and chalky pastels), while in the Seventies feminists emancipated themselves from bras and lipstick. This in turn spurred an unfortunate manifestation: the Power Woman. If ever there was a time when lipstick was war paint, it was the late Eighties. That was when I thought, enough is enough. And I was not alone: during the Nineties a slew of other indie brands such as Hard Candy and Urban Decay came on the market as an alternative.

<p style="text-align: left;" class="CaslonbodycopyBodyCxSpMiddle"> By 2002, having owned my own brand for 10 years, I moved from Australia to New York to take up a too-good-to-refuse offer with a major cosmetics house. By now, MAC's Lip Glass and Lancôme's Juicy Tubes were making it acceptable for grown-ups to wear lipgloss. A new natural idea of glamour had arrived. Lipstick started to disappear. But not from my lips.

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Lipstick will never die because that delightful, shiny, push-up tube, with its wondrously coloured stick, is embedded in the female psyche

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Whenever I saw another woman in Manhattan wearing red lipstick, I would wave, relieved not to be the only one. So rare was it to see anyone under the age of 70 sporting this look, I felt my beloved lipstick was in danger of ending up in a vitrine at the Museum of Natural History. This led me to launch my own line again. This time I named it Lipstick Queen. When I started my first brand, I was looking for shades and textures that didn't exist; this time my aim was to ensure lipstick itself continued to exist. I was back out in the stores selling this thing of beauty.

<p style="text-align: left;" class="CaslonbodycopyBodyCxSpMiddle"> The reaction I was getting was unbelievable. Women were genuinely scared of lipstick. How could this be? How could we be returning to a time when wearing lipstick was considered taboo? Like in ancient Greece, when only women of ill repute wore it. But this time it was not moral concerns driving the fear, it was something else. The fear of looking "too much". "I couldn't pull it off," "It wouldn't suit me," "I don't want to look overdone." These women felt lipstick would send them hurtling back into the past, ageing them in the process.

<p style="text-align: left;" class="CaslonbodycopyBodyCxSpMiddle"> Upon digesting the resistance, I understood. No one wanted to return to a full face of make-up. We were enjoying a more relaxed approach; not quite as natural as the Seventies had been, but also nowhere near as kaleidoscopic as either side of it.

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Every other season, the anxiety of "too much" returns and lipstick disappears once again, but ultimately it will never die because that delightful, shiny, push-up tube, with its wondrously coloured stick, is embedded in the female psyche. After two decades of wearing lipstick, I have lived through it being "in" and I've lived through it being "out". I have never lived through it not being of interest. I have often said that lipstick is to women what a sports car is to men. Most men will gaze at a sports car wondering if they could pull off something that showy. Lipstick is the same for women; most women wonder at some point in their lives if they could ever pull it off, mistakenly believing that you need confidence in order to do so. But the truth is, you don't need confidence to wear it, rather, it gives you confidence when you wear it. That is the magic of lipstick.

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This article was first published in the September 2014 issue of Vogue magazine